Virtual reality: The future of experimental research?
By Ruth Pijls - Senior lecturer/researcher at Saxion University of Applied Sciences
Experimental research is traditionally conducted in laboratory settings and field studies. Moving these studies into a virtual environment could combine the advantages of both, whilst overcoming many of their limitations. Virtual reality offers a realistic and controlled experimental environment, but it is not yet possible to measure participants’ experience real-time in VR.
Software for asking, answering and registering questions at any moment during the VR experience will make it possible to measure in real-time how people respond to environmental cues, as opposed to getting an impression once people are outside of the virtual world, which relies on memory. This would significantly increase the reliability and validity of such studies.
We created a tool that would be capable of such real-time measurement, and have been awarded a SAGE Concept Grant to develop a prototype showing the potential of such an integrated measurement tool. The VR measurement tool will offer the possibility to examine effects of environmental factors on people’s real-time experience in a realistic environment in which many variables can be controlled, like in a laboratory study. Measuring real-time experience without interrupting the experience is hardly possible so far, certainly not in a quantitative way, but once possible will have substantial applications in experimental social research.
Conducting experimental research in VR
I began experimenting with the possibilities of VR during my PhD research on consumers' experiences of hospitality in services, where I conducted experiments investigating the role of environment cues on the hospitableness of the service environment.
For hospitality research, a controlled laboratory setting is not suitable. After all, how do you assess hospitality in a laboratory? That is why most experimental studies have been carried out in real service environments. To show the effects of environmental variables on people's experience of hospitality, the manipulations of such variables need to be sufficiently pronounced. You can distinguish, for example, between hot or cold drinks offered to guests, between comfortable chairs or uncomfortable stools, but an environmental factor like the transparency of an entrance is more difficult to manipulate.
In a pilot study, we wanted to test the effects on guests’ experience of an opaque versus transparent facade, but of course, it is quite impossible in real life to turn a transparent facade into an opaque one.
The hotel entrance in the virtual environment: The facade was manipulated to be either transparent or opaque.
Virtual reality was the solution. We used this technology to create a virtual entrance to a hotel lobby, creating one environment in which the entire entrance was transparent and people were able to look inside the building as they approached it, and one in which the facade was opaque. The virtual environment also enabled us to manipulate door opening speed as another variable in our study. Instead of using a physical revolving door, we were able to change the timing and the speed at which two automatic doors opened when participants approached.
The advanced VR technology enabled us to trace the location of the participants so that the doors reacted according to their position in the virtual space. We also implemented avatars, representing hotel employees, who welcomed and instructed participants when they entered the reception desk.
Participants indicated that they experienced the virtual hotel as quite realistic. They had the feeling that they were really present in the virtual world. Participants, remarked for example that 'the environment in VR provides a good and realistic impression of the environment' and called this 'a very nice experience, it just seemed real!'
“VR offers the opportunity to measure in real-time how people react to and evaluate a wide range of test situations.”
This realistic and controllable environment is what makes the possibility of experimental research in VR so exciting. It enables the researcher to design and control realistic environments in which many variables can be controlled - similar to the conditions of a laboratory study - and to examine the effects of environmental aspects on people's real-time experiences and behavior.
This technology could also be used for training and educational purposes, in areas such as health care, service management and interior design. Ultimately, VR offers the opportunity to measure in real-time how people react to and evaluate a wide range of test situations.
What’s next for the VR measurement tool?
The study conducted using the VR environment has already been presented at a conference on services and I received comments from other social researchers that this type of experimental research is very useful and that real-time measurement and recording of perceptual and behavioral data would be a valuable addition.
Over the next few months, with support from the SAGE Concept Grant, we will be extending the current application to develop a concept prototype and conduct user testing. The new prototype will allow us to ask questions (visually or aurally) at different moments during the virtual experience and register answers in real-time.
Ruth Pijls is a cognitive psychologist. She has worked as a researcher and consultant in the field of multi-sensory marketing. Currently, she is working at the Hospitality department of Saxion University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands. Her expertise is on hospitality, customer experience and sensory perception. She is currently in the final phase of her PhD trajectory at the University of Twente on the experience of hospitality in service environments.